Acts 17:16-34
You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
“People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.
Paul was a strategist. He campaigned in the great cities of the Roman world. He selected center on trade-route, sea-ports, places where there was Mich coming and going. From these center the message would run like fire far and wide. He started with Roman Asia, moved on to Greece, then set his sights on Rome, and Spain beyond.
So he comes to Athens, a city with 1000 years of history, glorying in past greatness: Athens, the originator of democracy, home of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides. Thucydides, Socrates, Plato; the greatest university of the world, center of philosophy, literature, science and art.
In the synagogues Paul argues his case from the Jewish scriptures. Addressing the Greek philosophers in Athens he takes his cue from a local inscription and quotes from their own writers. The message, that they must repent and believe in Jesus, whom God has raised from the dead does not change, but a different audience calls for a different presentation. Athens proves hard ground for the gospel.
Why?
Paul saw detail of the city in and explain gospel from what he saw in the environment.
The unknown god they did not know so Paul tell them what is the unknown God, who is the Lord of the world and heaven.
Now he commands all people everywhere to repent is the way to know this great God.
Jesus Christ raise from the dead, and He will come again on a day to judge the world with justice.
How?
Preach gospel to the world with all I can and make witness of the Lord in my life.
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